ABSTRACT

Hydraulic jumps are seen everyday in our kitchen sink (when the jet of water from the tap impinges on the solid bottom, it spreads out radially and at some radius we notice a sudden increase in the height of the radially spreading film), and often in rivers in the form of tidal bores.Traditionally hydraulic jumps have been studied using hallow-water theory, although it is well-known that they are not valid exactly at the jump, or a strong jump. The idea has been to work on either side of the jump and match the solutions. The limitations of the shallow water theory in describing this flow even for the weakest of jumps will be discussed. It will then be described how the near-jump flow can be understood.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr. Rama Govindarajan obtained her B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi, her Master's degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia, and PhD in Engineering from IISc Bangalore. After working at the National Aerospace Labs for ten years, she has been at the JNCASR since 1998, where she is currently the Chairman of the Engineering Mechanics Unit. Her research is in the areas of hydrodynamic stability of boundary layers, spatially developing flows and stratified flows. She has held visiting positions at the Weizmann Institute, Israel and at UCSB, Santa Barbara, and is a recipeint of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar prize in Engineering Sciences.